Ideology and the Legislative Turn in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Criminal Justice

Abstract

Envisioning a well-ordered society composed of filial subjects who obeyed the law, avoided disputes, shunned religious heresy, paid their taxes, and peacefully engaged in agriculture, the Kangxi emperor’s “Sacred Edict of Sixteen Maxims” (圣谕十六条) has often been considered a declaration of the alien Qing dynasty’s Confucian bona fides. While the rhetoric of the pronouncement echoed traditional moral values, the political acumen of the Qing rulers was readily apparent in the eighth maxim, “explain the laws to warn the ignorant and obstinate.” Melding moral and legal education, the eighth maxim specifically endorsed the efficacy of the law. The importance placed on legal knowledge was abundantly clear in one of the earliest commentaries, which explained all sixteen maxims with examples of applicable legal guidelines. Thus, the “Sacred Edict” was a shrewd maneuver that endorsed traditional moral values, but it also foreshadowed a “legislative turn” in the Qing rule that was discernible in the evolving ethos of criminal justice. Despite the extensive efforts to propagate the “Sacred Edict,” violent crime was on the rise in the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong reigns. When transformation through moral “teaching and cultivation” (jiaoyang 教养) failed to alleviate social conflict, Qing rulers reconsidered and revised the established practice of criminal justice and the existing concept of criminal behavior. By the end of the eighteenth century, the effort to stem the tide of violent crime relied less on ideological exhortation and more on legislation that articulated harsh punishments. This “legislative turn” in Qing criminal justice resulted in an aggressive policy of deterrence that facilitated the greater use of capital punishment.

Key words： “Sacred Edict”; Qing legislative turn; capital punishment; Chinese criminal justice